Many will say, Washington State wine regions are the Napa of tomorrow. While Washington wine is becoming popular, it is still relatively subdued. There are big-name companies that are well known currently, but there are many smaller wineries and vineyards waiting to be discovered. I have no doubt the Columbia Valley and Walla Walla regions will explode in the foreseeable future.
One of the currently popular wine companies is Columbia Crest, from Columbia Valley, WA. Since its birth in 1978, Columbia Crest vineyards has thrived along the Columbia River. Interestingly, the appellation runs along the 46th parallel, which is the same altitude as central France. As such, Bordeaux varietals do extraordinarily well. There are four main factors that make the Columbia Valley a great place to grow grapes. Geologically, the south-facing basalt earth surface provide great grape-growing conditions. Additionally, overall superior weather and superlative terrior help make the wine taste as wonderful as it does. Finally, these vineyards are not burdened with Phylloxera, which can really damage grapevines and hinder growth. Columbia Crest prides itself on producing a small amount of cases each harvest. This way they can spend more time perfecting the small amounts of wine produced, rather than spend all of their time with more labor induced tasks overtaken by larger allotments.
While I haven't tried all of their wines, I recently tried two Merlots, which I thought were exceptional. Let me tell you, the winemaker really knows what he's doing. One Merlot was their 2002 Two Vines and the other was their estate wine, 2003 Grand Estates. Their Two Vines wines have been labeled "Best Buy" and "Best Value" by both Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast. Unlike Old World wines, New World wines such as these two Merlots, are very fruit-forward and robust in flavor. The estate wine was more fruit-forward than the Two Vines, had blackberry and plumb aromas and hints of spice and chocolate. The texture on the palate was soft and smooth, with a medium finish. Two Vines, on the other hand, while fruit-forward, had a slight subtlety to it. The fruitiness is more of a tart red-fruit flavor of raspberry, rather than the black-fruit flavors offered in the estate wine. However, there was still a hint of blackberry on the palate. Similar to the estate wine, Two Vines Merlot had a bouquet of spices and cocoa and a hint of oak, followed by a velvety finish.
Both of these Merlots, and most of Columbia Crest's wines are extremely reasonably priced. They usually run around $8 and can be found in most grocery stores and wine shops. Please check out the Columbia Crest website for more information about them and their wines!
